


Chopsticks and Screw

by BuffyRowan



Category: Sharkansas Women's Prison Massacre
Genre: Gen, hints of potential future relationship, improving the ending
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-23
Updated: 2017-01-23
Packaged: 2018-09-19 10:24:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,857
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9435995
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BuffyRowan/pseuds/BuffyRowan
Summary: What happened to Michelle after the movie ended





	

**Author's Note:**

> Yeah, I changed the ending just a bit. Because even in the context of the rest of the plot, that was kind of stupid.

Michelle Alika was not really a stupid person. She'd made two stupid choices, certainly. The first had been to let her boyfriend talk her into skipping the condom a couple times. That mistake had created her son, who she loved fiercely and unconditionally, so she saw it as a more minor mistake than society seemed to think. The second had been to let her babydaddy (ok, three mistakes, since she let Malik convince her it'd be a terrible idea to let her pregnancy "force" them into marrying before they were "ready") be mostly unsupervised planning their road trip to see his aunt in Louisiana. Malik had told her that the brakes on their car were getting worn, but they couldn't afford to replace them before the trip. So he'd borrowed a car from a friend of his. She'd been touched by his thoughtfulness, even if she'd thought the minivan was a little oversized for the three of them. Then they'd been pulled over just inside the Arkansas border because the plates on the van were expired (Michelle hadn't even noticed), a taillight wasn't working, and Malik had been speeding. One thing lead to another, and Michelle found out that the reason he'd borrowed a friend's van was so that he could load a couple cases of cigarettes and booze he'd gotten from one of his cousins. Cases that were missing their tax stamps.

The courts had actually been fairly kind to Michelle, and she recognized it. The judge had believed her when she told him that she'd had no idea what Malik was doing, and never would have let him do it with their two-year-old son in the car. She'd only been given three years, and her mom was given custody of Gage. Actually, not letting herself be pressured into marrying Malik transformed from a mistake to a blessing, since there was no marriage or formal custody agreement, she could make sure Malik was never around Gage to teach him his stupid ways.)

Prison sucked. She'd never been under any illusions about it. But she would do her time and go home to her baby boy. It sucked, only seeing her little boy a couple hours on a weekend. She'd missed so much, and by the time she got out there'd only be a few months together before Gage was starting kindergarten. But Michelle also knew it could have been a whole lot worse, so she didn't complain much. 

After the black hole of suck that one simple work detail turned into, Michelle was even more convinced she had a guardian angel. She didn't get shot or eaten, and Carl had been super sweet, offering to say that she hadn't survived so she could get away, get back to her son early. It had been tempting, but she couldn't do it. It never would have worked, having to get a fake ID, dragging her son into that kind of life. Besides, when she inevitably got caught out, Carl would be in deep shit, and he didn't deserve that. Not after everything he'd done to try and make sure they all survived both Honey and Anita's stupid plan to escape and the sharkosaurs. 

It was a blatant favor in hopes of her keeping her yap shut, but Michelle happily took it when the Arkansas governor got the courts to agree that facing down prehistoric landsharks could count as time served, and she got released just under a month after it happened. Her lawyer told her there was some legal wrangling left to do, but that he thought he could get her record expunged, too. She'd gone to church and thanked God for looking out for her, for Carl, and for her lawyer.

She couldn't stay in Arkansas, though. Not with those creatures swimming around who-knows-where, ready and hungry. She'd called up her cousin who lived out in Colorado and begged for a job. He owned a construction company based in Boulder, and it turned out he could use some help in the office. She'd been packed and on the road almost before he'd called back to officially offer her the job. The pay wasn't great, but it had health insurance, and her cousin was letting her rent a duplex he owned for dirt cheap. Gage loved the mountains, and wanted to learn to snowboard as soon as there was enough snow. Michelle was just happy to feel secure setting foot on dirt again, plenty of solid rock between her and the fucking sharks. 

They adapted. The company that had fucked up fracking ponied up a nice chunk of cash in damages for releasing the sharkosaurs, which Michelle promptly stuck most of into a trust account for Gage's college tuition. Gage started school, and made lots of friends in kindergarten. Michelle was whipping her cousin's paperwork into line, and was enjoying her work. The construction workers had tried to haze her a bit, big tough guys testing to see her limits. She'd laughed at all attempts to flirt with her, then intimidate her. One guy had thought he could put a scare in her showing off a few tattoos and a load of muscles. She'd laughed in his face, and the next day brought in the framed front page article from the Arkansas newspaper about the sharkosaur attack, the one that had her mugshot under the headline "Sharkansas Women's Prison Massacre." After that, the guys had adopted her as little sister and unofficial mascot. 

They'd been in Colorado for a year when Michelle agreed to be a chaperone on a trip for Gage's cub scout troop. The boys were all excited to go to Downtown Aquarium in Denver, and she was glad to help out. She did let the leader and the other adults know that she'd prefer not to go near the displays with sharks, and they agreed to swap around to make it happen. They'd just finished watching one of the mermaid shows when one of the older boys in the troop came up talking ninety miles a minute to drag her off to see this "absolutely the most awesome thing in the universe." She was trying to listen to him and keep track of two other boys that had been wandering off all day, when he pulled her in front of one of the big tank windows with a grin, "See?"

Michelle looked up to see a shark swimming lazily along the glass wall of the tank. Then she was back in the Arkansas backwoods. The smell of mud and wet and cordite from where Honey had taken the shot at those sharks from the porch. She couldn't breathe, she couldn't breathe and there was nothing but terror and panic and . . .

"--Come on, Chopsticks, you're scaring your kid. What, you can handle assault rifles in the back woods, but put the sharks behind glass and you become a little pussy about it?" She never thought she'd be happy to hear that gravelly voice again.

She looked over at Carl, "Watch your language, Screw, my boy's around here. And how the hell are you /here/?"

Carl laughed as he pulled her up from where she was huddled on the floor against the wall as far away from the aquarium window as she could get. "Eh, retired a couple months after you got sprung, medical grounds. Got myself a few phobias out there, wanted to get away from the place. I've got a cousin out here, he knew a guy. You're looking at the head of security around here--it's a cream puff of a job, let me tell you."

She let herself lean on him, just a bit. "So, what happened?"

"Apparently that other boy overheard that you were scared of sharks. So, having the sense of humor of a nine-year-old-boy, he thought it'd be funny to surprise you with a visit to the shark tank. You had a panic attack. Security got called, and I got here just in time to keep your son from trying to beat the shit out of a kid about twice his size. Last I heard, either the troop leader or the boy's mother was tearing a strip off his hide for this prank."

"Good to hear." Michelle was surprised how good it felt to have Carl's arm around her shoulder. He was absolutely not her type, but on the other hand they'd survived sharkosaurs together. She knew he was a good guy, a guy who wouldn't cut and run on her. Or maybe it was an illusion /because/ they'd faced sharkosaurs together, adrenaline and stuff confusing things. "And the name's Michelle, remember?"

He grinned, "Only if you call me Carl. Or do I have to threaten to make some of Shannon's specialty?"

Michelle mimed a punch at him, "Only if you want me to vomit on you."

They were interrupted by the high-velocity hug attack from Gage, "Mom, are you okay? I was going to punch Tyler, but he said it was a bad idea. But you looked so scared, and you didn't hear me and--" Her baby, who was so proud of how grown up he was getting, was not only clinging to her like kudzu, he was starting to cry. Michelle was near tears, herself.

"I'm okay, baby. I was really scared. So scared, I thought I was back in the woods in Arkansas all by myself. But Carl helped me out." She lifted Gage's chin to meet his eyes, "Really, I'm feeling much better. In fact, that hug was exactly what I needed. And Carl was right, hitting Tyler was a very bad idea." She looked up, "Carl's usually pretty right about that sort of thing. You remember me telling you about the guard that helped me? That's Carl. He's not a prison guard now. He works security for the aquarium."

Oh, she was definitely a proud mama right now. Gage stood right up and threw himself into a big hug for Carl, "Thank you for helping my mom get home safe to me." 

Luckily, it was late in the afternoon, and the troop had been about ready to leave, anyway. Michelle waved off Tyler's mother's mortified apologies, though she agreed that Tyler himself wouldn't get off that easy. He would apparently be spending the rest of his weekend at the library, researching phobias and panic attacks and writing a three-page paper on them. (Apparently have a teacher for a mother made for creative and informative punishments. Although Michelle agreed that having to write a paper was probably a worse punishment to Tyler than being grounded from his XBox.) Carl walked with them, chatting a bit. Michelle wasn't sure what made her do it, but it felt like a really good idea to dig into her purse for a scrap of paper and a pen. She scribbled on it using the side of the minivan as a table, then handed it to Carl, "That's my number. If you're ever in Boulder, give a call, join me and Gage for dinner? Be nice to keep in touch."

Carl smiled and winked at her, "Sounds good to me, Chopsticks."


End file.
